News-Info-Alerts

Re: Talk of War Hurts Speicher Case

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 26, 2002

"Speicher case hurt by talk of war with Iraq
Political tension slows efforts for missing pilot

By Paul Pinkham
Times-Union staff writer

Talk of war with Iraq has hindered diplomatic efforts to determine the fate of a Jacksonville Navy pilot missing since the Gulf War, one of a group of U.S. senators leading the search for information said yesterday.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in Jacksonville to campaign for fellow Democrats, said he and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., even canceled plans for a fact-finding mission to Baghdad.

"We couldn't insinuate ourselves in any regard in that type of military conflict," Nelson said. "The potential military action against Iraq complicates our effort to get any information on Scott Speicher."

Nelson and Roberts are part of the so-called "Speicher posse," a group of senators aggressively pushing the missing Navy captain's cause on Capitol Hill.

The senators are responsible for two Speicher-related bills approved by the Senate last session. One requires regular Pentagon briefings on Speicher's status to key senators. The other offers asylum to any foreign national who returns Speicher to U.S. soil. Both have a good chance of passage in the House, said U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla.

The posse also quizzes defense and intelligence officials about Speicher at committee hearings, social gatherings and virtually every other opportunity, said Nelson, a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees.

"We've gotten the attention of the Department of Defense," the first-term senator said. "At least it's on their radar screen."

Speicher's FA-18 Hornet was shot down over Iraq on the opening night of Desert Storm in 1991. He was believed killed, but was reclassified as missing in action last year.

The United States and Iraq have traded diplomatic notes on Speicher but haven't come to any agreement. On Wednesday, John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused Iraq during a Security Council meeting, of failing to cooperate on the Speicher issue.

Navy Secretary Gordon England is considering another reclassification to missing-captured or prisoner of war, a change pushed hard by Roberts. Some say that proposal is prompted by hard liners in the Bush administration building their case for an invasion of Iraq.

But Nelson said the two issues are separate.

"I think what [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein is going to do is use Scott as a wedge against the United States if Scott's alive, and if Scott's not alive, he'll try to create the illusion, by a strong silence, that he might be alive," Nelson said.

Nelson also criticized those who think the United States should give up on Speicher. At the very least, he said, Speicher's family in Orange Park deserves to know what happened.

Staff writer Paul Pinkham can be reached at (904) 359-4107 or via e-mail at ppinkhamjacksonville.com.

© The Florida Times-Union "